DEALING WITH THE DEAD

Publisher: Liquid Silver Books
Tina Holland
ISBN 1-59578-275-3
Purchase this title now from Liquid Silver Books !

Dealing with the Dead
Tina Holland
Chapter One

3024 AD

Compound 51, Outside of Sin Vegas

Even Shakespeare never suffered the endless auditions of an apparition! Melissa of the Air Clan woke to the sound of the ghostly Charles reciting the ancient playwright yet again. He’d once been a great actor of the Elizabethan stage until he’d been killed by a vampire. She often thought it odd vamps existed long before the evils of the modern world.

“Charles enough!” Melissa sat up, covering her ears.

“Sorry Melissa, but one never knows when one will have the opportunity to perform in front of an audience.” Melissa doubted there was a great call for Shakespearean apparitions but kept her opinion to herself.

“Do you know where Doc is?”

“Dr. Roberts is in SE VERS going over last nights scans.”

“Good, at least one of us is working.” Melissa shivered at the touch of the cold cement on her feet as she strolled briskly to the closet in search of clothes. She didn’t bother to hide her nakedness.

“Miss Melissa! You need to be more modest. Such brazen disregard for your person is dangerous.” Dear Charles, sometimes he was trapped in his own time.

“Charles, are you speaking of my sexuality or my vulnerability to things which prey on humans?”
“Both.” He raised his hands in exasperation, “There is simply no reasoning with you, when you are like this. Women should compose themselves in a manner befitting their station...”

Melissa ignored him as he went into a tirade on her atrocious upbringing. It wasn’t her fault she was born in an age when being a woman wasn’t desirable. Being the weaker sex works against you when coexisting with vamps, shifters and zombies. But she had something most humans didn’t have. Ghosts! Yes they were indeed key to survival in modern day. Some clans relied on magic and some on science. Melissa’s clan embraced both. She was considered fortunate to have been born a Passage--those who speak with the dead and were possessed by them. She finished dressing in her usual attire of fitted black pants, her pearl tunic top molded against her body like a second skin. Knee-high leather steel-toed boots completed her attire. She tied her strawberry blonde hair back so it wouldn’t be in her face and proceeded down the corridor to SE VERS.

The cold, gray compound had been abandoned by everyone except a small group of scientists around five hundred years ago following the fourth world war. The war that created the abominations she now hunted. A bio-virus was dropped on the Americas by Antarctica as a test before Desert Europe was hit. In retaliation the Desert Europeans launched missiles left from The Cold War. Missiles supposedly disposed of. The radiation in combination with the bio-virus created zombies. A zombie’s muscle breakdown gave them a short life but the increased metabolic rate created constant hunger. The monsters continually ate to survive, and they weren’t terribly picky. Zombies were virtually unstoppable until they starved to death. Being bitten by one practically guaranteed you contracted the radioactive bio-virus.

Melissa used her pass to activate the lock on the door and, as usual she found Dr. Gideon Roberts with his head in the monitor scanning the recordings of the SHOP. The SHOP sent out data on the latest sightings, including people. The SHOP used the old cameras sighted all over Sin Vegas, and perpetually downloaded data. No one actually managed the data anymore it was simply erased and recorded over. The downside was unless you were a computer, vamp, or ghost, it was nearly impossible to go through all the data before it was deleted and recycled again. Lucky for her, Doc was a ghost. “Any luck?”

“Actually yes. Michael was at Le Cage.”

Melissa gloried briefly in relief. “He’s alive, thank the elements.”

“But it’s not good, Mel.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll need to see the tape.”

Mel sat back and rested her gaze over the monitor, readying herself for the worst. Le Cage was basically a meat market. It was where vamps and shifters went to buy people for their own devices, whether it was sex, slavery or food. She watched the monitor and saw Michael in the audience. He was alive. Thank the elements he was alive. A woman proceeded across the stage. She seemed confident, naively so, most likely promised a lot of money to perform this striptease. Le Cage owners, fucking vamps, were notorious for granting money up front, they always got it back in the end as individuals were likely unable to collect. Most locals knew Le Cage for what it was, but heavens help the traveling performers. The naive girl continued to prance up and down the caged runway until the bars started to roll up.

Melissa stayed focused on Michael, as the bars went up. He seemed to double over in pain. When he finally rose, she was assaulted with relief and shock. Michael was turning. He’d been bitten by a shifter sometime during the seventy-two hours in which he’d been missing. Judging by his new features it appeared to be canine. Thanks to genetic manipulation there were also werecats and other types of shifters. Canines were harder to kill, good news for Michael. Bad news for anyone he harmed. She continued to watch the tape, thankful Michael was alive and concerned he was being hunted. As if suddenly realizing her precarious situation the young lady on the monitor now lacked the confidence to perform. The monitor went blank.

“What happened?” Mel asked, hitting the monitor, her hand bouncing off and going through Doc’s caporal form.

“The SHOP is recycling.” Doc answered.

“No matter, we’re going to Le Cage tonight.”

“Are you crazy? That’s suicide. We don’t even know why Michael was there.”

“But we are going to find out. I’ll go get Charles. He can be the chiller tonight, so you need to monitor vitals.”